Perhaps he deduced it. Perhaps someone told him. At any rate, he found out.
It was shocking. It even stunned him. He became frightened. And then he saw the story in headlines--the nation and the world thrown into the same state of terror that he was in. Naturally he decided to print it.
He was going to give it to the great American public. But if not in print, then by some other means. That was that. Arrest him, and it would come out at his trial. Any action the government chose to take, still the people were going to be told.
For, as Adam Kregg knew, he lived in a democracy. And the government tactics did not includeHe tucked the column into his coat pocket. He was going to take it to the syndicate personally. He was going to see it go out over the wires. And n.o.body was going to talk him out of it.
It was the scoop of a lifetime.
Maybe ten lifetimes. Better, even, than when the reporter had discovered, during the last war, that the Government had broken the j.a.panese code.
He got into his car and drove crosstown to the syndicate branch office.
He got out and started across the sidewalk.
A huge, black car hurtled around the comer and flashed by him. Two shotgun blasts erupted from it.
He fell, his chest torn away. He squirmed once and died.
Almost immediately, a plainclothes agent was bending over him. The man removed the b.l.o.o.d.y sheaf of typed paper. He stood up and flashed his badge to the crowd.
"This man is dead," he said.
And a policeman came running up.
The FBI seized all of Adam Kregg"s personal papers. They told the press that they were looking for clues.
And there were headlines: FBI STArTS INVESTIGATION Of ADAM KREGG"S DeATH!
But the a.s.sa.s.sin was never found.
Adam Kregg failed to realize that the secret was too big to protect by normal, democratic procedures.
"It"s a neat legal question," the Chief Psychiatrist admitted. "But you know very well we can never bring the case into court!"
The President agreed. "You"re right, of course." He looked off into s.p.a.ce.
"And I hate it! The way it forces us to abridge all human rights--"
The Chief Psychiatrist nodded grimly.
"Well?" the President demanded. "Can"t you do something? Isn"t there any test? Anything?"
"No." The Chief Psychiatrist looked away. "There is no way of telling who"s susceptible and who isn"t. Frankly, we"re puzzled. The first case came up a little over a year ago. This is the fifth. Each case follows the same pattern... . I... . well, that"s all we know."
"How is the man now?"
"Aside from the memory blank, completely normal."
"And what do you recommend?"
"We can"t take the case to court. As it stands, of course, we can"t release him. If for no other reason than security. It"s obvious that he can"t be held accountable--but, as I said, that"s a neat legal question.
And, we must remember, that the condition may return at any time."
"Well?"
"Wait and see. What else can we do?"
There was a momentary pause. "Mr. President, I"d like to have you see for yourself what you"re up against. Come and look at the patient."
The President stood up. It was the last thing in the world that he wanted to do. But after all, this whole mess was his responsibility.
The patient was isolated in a cell block of the Federal Prison. He was sitting on his bed in the far cell.
The keys grated harshly as the jailer admitted the President and the Chief Psychiatrist.
The patient stood up. His face was pallid. Tight anguish lines laced it.
But it was still a handsome face--young, strong, tanned. The eyes were red rimmed, as if the man had been crying. Blond hair spread in an unruly thatch.
The President walked slowly to his cell.
The patient looked at him for a moment without recognition. Then the red circled eyes seemed to light up.
"You"re... . you"re the President!" he gasped.
"I am," the President said, gently.
"I... . I," he began and then stopped with a choke. Suddenly a wild look came into his eyes. "Why have they got me here?" He grabbed the bars and shook them. "Why? Why? WHY?" He sobbed. "Why won"t they let me see my wife and baby? Why won"t they let me see anybody?
You"re the President," his voice began almost to whine, "surely you can tell me. What have I done?"
He banged his fists on the bars.
"Tell me! Tell me!"
"Here, here," the Chief Psychiatrist said. "Control yourself!"
"I"m... . I"m sorry. But why won"t somebody tell me anything? I...
I want to see Doris." He turned his face to the President. "That"s my wife, sir.
And Jerry. That"s my baby--cutest little kid. Why won"t they let me see them?"
He began to cry.
The Chief Psychiatrist touched the President"s arm. "Let"s go," he whispered. "We can"t do anything. It"s shock."
They turned and started to leave.
"NO!" the blond youth cried. "Oh, no! Don"t leave me. Don"t leave me here alone." He began to sob. "I"m afraid... . afraid... .
afraid--"
"Doesn"t he remember?" the President asked when they were out of the cell block.
"Doesn"t seem to. He must have established a subconscious block.
There is no conscious memory for the whole period."
"How do you explain it?"
"I can"t. And what makes it more horrible, it happened after that poor kid"s first tour of duty. Now we know it isn"t necessarily the time element. And that"s about all we know.
"Our tests are as perfect as human science can make them. We may screen as many as ten thousand applicants before we have found one who is qualified, even, for the solitary test. I"ll bet we"ve screened half of the available men in America. We have been so selective that, if we went one step further, we could qualify no one. And yet--there is the human element there, that eludes us.
"There still remains those men upon whom the s.p.a.ce Stations act as a drug.
Like marijuana. They seem to tower above mortality!
"And all that responsibility, all that tension--so many lives at their fingertips. And the suspense--what with the way the newspapers are playing up the international situation--sitting there, waiting, waiting, waiting.
Listening for that deadly signal. Waiting to punch the controls that will destroy one hundred million people. One-hundred-million! And the tension mounting as they swirl over enemy territory... . the flood of relief over their own--" He paused.
"I can imagine what the poor devils must think. Life and death... .
life and death... . life and death--Over and over, producing a hypnotic effect ?,--like the individual death-wish. And the mind falls into that patternstarts working like a pump."
He paused for a moment. "And then there is the second stage. "Suppose I should push this b.u.t.ton here, what would happen? would happen?
would h-a-p-p-e-n? Or this b.u.t.ton... . or this--Life and death. And onehundred-million people... . living... . loving--"" He stopped. "You see?"
"I--see," said the President.
"No wonder they break. All the world, all that living, there, at their fingertips--" He sighed.
"All five of the men waited until they were home on furlough before they snapped." He snapped his fingers. "Like that! And all followed a pattern--like that poor boy in there, taking a butcher knife to his wife and kid. Insane--criminally insane. Or the one before--" "Don"t!" the President ordered, closing his eyes. "Please. No more."
Then after a while, he opened his eyes again and looked upward.
The law of averages, he thought, is catching up with us. Five on furlough.
And swirling in one of those nine orbits, up there, is a man who may, at any moment, become... . just like the five... . murderous... .
insane!
And in each of the Stations there is enough power to destroy half a continent.
First Published: 1949
ETERNITY LOST
by Clifford D. Simak
Mr. Reeves: The situation, as I see it, calls for well defined safeguards which would prevent continuation of life from falling under the patronage of political parties or other groups in power.
Chairman Leonard: You mean you are afraid it might become a political football?
Mr. Reeves: Not only that, sir, I am afraid that political parties might use it to continue beyond normal usefulness the lives of certain so called elder statesmen who are needed by the party to maintain prestige and dignity in the public eye.
From the Records of a hearing before the science subcommittee of the public policy committee of the World House of Representatives.
Senator Homer Leonard"s visitors had something on their minds. They fidgeted mentally as they sat in the senator"s office and drank the senator"s good whiskey. They talked, quite importantly, as was their wont, but they talked around the thing they had come to say. They circled it like a hound dog circling a c.o.o.n, waiting for an opening, circling the subject to catch an opportunity that might make the message sound just a bit offhanded--as if they had just thought of it in pa.s.sing and had not called purposely on the senator to say it.
It was queer, the senator told himself. For he had known these two for a good while now. And they had known him equally as long. There should be nothing they should hesitate to tell him. They had, in the past, been brutally frank about many things in his political career.
It might be, he thought, more bad news from North America, but he was as well acquainted with that bad news as they. After all, he told himself philosophically, a man cannot reasonably expect to stay in office forever.
The voters, from sheer boredom if nothing else, would finally reach the day when they would vote against a man who had served them faithfully and well.
And the senator was candid enough to admit, at least to himself, that there had been times when he had served the voters of North America neither faithfully nor well.
Even at that, he thought, he had not been beaten yet. It was still several months until election time and there was a trick or two that he had never tried, political dodges that even at this late date might save the senatorial hide. Given the proper time and the proper place and he would win out yet. Timing, he told himself--proper timing is the thing that counts.
He sat quietly in his chair, a great hulk of a man, and for a single instant he closed his eyes to shut out the room and the sunlight in the window. Timing, he thought. Yes, timing and a feeling for the public, a finger on the public pulse, the ability to know ahead of time what the voter eventually will come to think--those were the ingredients of good strategy. To know ahead of time, to be ahead in thinking, so that in a week or a month or year, the voters would say to one another: "You know Bill, old Senator Leonard had it right. Remember what he said last week --or month or year--over there in Geneva. Yes, sir, he laid it on the line.
There ain"t much that gets past that old fox of a Leonard."
He opened his eyes a slit, keeping them still half closed so his visitors might think he"d only had them half closed all the time. For it was impolite and a political mistake to close one"s eyes when one had visitors.
They might get the idea one wasn"t interested. Or they might seize the opportunity to cut one"s throat.
It"s because I"m getting old again, the senator told himself. Getting old and drowsy. But just as smart as ever. Yes, sir, said the senator, talking to himself, just as smart and slippery as I ever was.
He saw by the tight expressions on the faces of the two that they finally were set to tell him the thing they had come to tell. All their circling and sniffing had been of no avail. Now they had to come out with it, on the line, cold turkey.
"There has been a certain matter," said Alexander Gibbs, "which has been quite a problem for the party for a long time now. We had hoped that matters would so arrange themselves that we wouldn"t need to call it to your attention, senator. But the executive committee held a meeting in New York the other night and it seemed to be the consensus that we communicate it to you."
It"s bad, thought the senator, even worse than I thought it might be-for Gibbs is talking in his best double-crossing manner.